Peach Melba

On Saturday, my Dad and I picked blackberries from his garden.  It was almost 100 degrees.  The berries were so hot that when I washed them later under cool water and put them into a bowl, you could see steam rising off of the the berries!  Now, that is HOT!

My Dad also gave me two nice size peaches, he had bought them from a man who has his own peach orchard and he just lives a few miles away.

What did I do with the blackberries and peaches?

Hmm...I thought that I could possibly make Peach Melba.  I looked up the recipe and yes, I think I could substitute blackberries for the raspberries. Want to know how I did it?  You know I am going to tell you whether you want to know or not!

KAY'S Peach Melba!

4 cups blackberries (freshly picked!)

3/4 sugar (maybe a bit more...go by your taste)

squeeze of lemon juice

2 tablespoons blackberry jam  (Oh, forgot to say, Dad gave me this too!)

Put the above into a boiler and bring to boil and turn down to a high simmer.  Take a spoon and smash the blackberries as much as possible.  Simmer until...well, I don't know, until you think they look right, you know until it is cooked down. Take off heat and let cool.

At this point, I had a strainer and I took some out and strained some of this mixture into a clean glass jelly jar. So, this part has no seeds...it came to about 1/2 cup.   Any of the seeds left in the strainer, I just put this back into the mixture.  Now, the mixture left, I took that and put into a larger glass jelly jar.  (Richard likes the seeds but I don't!)

The two peaches, which were lovely and ripe, were sliced into a bowl with 2 teaspoons sugar. I then put the peaches in the fridge. 

Later that evening (after another blazing hot day!) I took the peaches and put them into two bowls. On top of my peaches, I had two scoops of vanilla ice cream and Richard's bowl had 3 scoops of ice cream. I then drizzled some of the blackberry topping on his (with the seeds) and on top of mine, the strained blackberry sauce without seeds. (I will keep the jars of blackberry sauce in my fridge, and hopefully will find a use for them in another recipe this week!)

Wow, those fresh blackberries and fresh peaches just make such a difference.  It was delicious.

What do you think?  Have you ever made this before? It seems to me you could make it with any kind of berry and you should use any berry that you have that is fresh and most certainly a berry that is GIVEN to you!

Oh! And my "go to" recipe book is always my Fannie Farmer Cookbook. I have had it since 1984 or so and Richard covered it for me in a yellow plastic wrapping. It is a golden treasure!

By the way, Peach Melba was invented by the French chef, Auguste Escoffier in honor of the Australian opera singer, Nellie Melba.  It was first served at the Savoy Hotel in London!

 Funny, I always find an English connection, don't I?  

Don't know about anyone else but I couldn't do much of anything on Sunday after the terrible news from Orlando.  So sad and today I learned that one of our former co workers had died in an accident over the weekend.  Praying for all who have lost loved ones.

The man that I know who died had found great joy in his job at Stone Mountain.  Here is a photo in his honor.

He truly loved Stone Mountain.